My Job: To share with my children the things I love: beaches, autumn leaves, chocolate-chip cookies, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wizard of Oz.Not My Job: To take them to Disney World, give them cars for their 16th birthday, or provide them with their own computers, TVs, and cell phones.

My Job: To set aside what money I can towards the cost of a university education.Not My Job: To ensure that my children never have to work a part-time job.

My Job: To be vitally interested in my children’s lives.Not My Job: To do their science fair projects, micro-manage their friendships, or tag along when they go clubbing with their underage friends.

My Job: To ensure that my children get what they need to develop their potential: nutritious meals, an educational environment in which they can learn, time to play with their friends, the knowledge that God loves them.Not My Job: To decide what they will do with that potential.

My Job: To direct my votes, my volunteer hours, and my charitable giving towards fostering the potential of all children in my community.Not My Job: To ensure that my children receive no benefits except those that are available to all.

My Job: To model respect and reasonableness and expect the same in return.Not My Job: To build the family's routine around the children's soccer, piano, swimming and golf lessons.

My Job: To temper my children’s natural greed by encouraging them to share, to forgive, and to turn the other cheek.Not My Job: To ensure that they never let anyone push them around.

My Job: To give my children fun, companionship, and safety.Not My Job: To ensure that they get the best of everything.

Good post. VERY good post. And also: not only is it NOT my job to buy the little twerps their own computers, cars and televisions, but I would go so far as to say that doing so is BAD parenting. There is one tv and one tv ONLY at Casa Beck.

Beck - There's a problem with faulty parallelism in this post, actually. Many of the "Not My Job" things are bad parenting, but some of them (like going to Disney World) are merely optional, or not as important to me as they apparently are to some people. I also considered adding this one:

I agree with Rae - this is a manifesto, and it's a great one. My own pet theory is that the job of parenting is to raise functional adults, thereby eventually working yourself out of a job. I think your "family values" statement is a fine guide to doing that, and I hope you won't mind if I link to it.

Well, I did want to go to Disney World if that counts...it was mostly me who made the arrangements if you know what I mean.

These are words to live by in many ways. I agree that is not my job to give up myself in order for my children to thrive. My Mom didn't and I am thankful for it. My Mom often comments that her world did not revolve around me, I was a part of it of course, but not the sole reason of her existence.

I think the buying your kids stuff equals bad parenting is a bit of a slippery slope.

My sister-in-law (a single parent) has bought two of her three children laptops and cell phones for use in high school/university and I am hesitant to call it bad parenting. Both of the children have part-time jobs and contribute to their expenses. One goes to a school that actually requires a laptop for some of the courses. I am not sure I would label it bad parenting is all. She is trying to give them every advantage to succeed and while a laptop is not required by any means it is her way of inventing in their future.

And to add to Swistle's comment.

All of the fund-raising dollars our school raises - every last dollar - is put back into the school. As the Parent Council we were able to buy new microphones for the gym, buy books the library, give our social worker funds to assist many of the families she works with (she assists with everything from groceries to winter clothes), subsidized trips, etc.

I am not ragging on Swistle I get where she is coming from, but not all Council's are the same. Our school is small and we rely on the fund-raising dollars to make up for the funding gaps. Out of a school of just over 400 students we have about 6-8 parents who support the Council - that is it. We manage to do an awful lot despite everything working against us. We never pressure our families at all, those that can help do, that is it.

Sorry for the rant. Personal one for me. Look at me all riled up today. I think I might be a wee bit cranky.

Indeed, yes. This deserves to be posted to a lot of people!I could add one.My Job: to think of and provide materials and opportunities ffrom which my children can learn.Not My Job: to do anything about cries of 'I'm bored and there's nothing to do!'On the other hand, grama is a very soft touch. Cries of 'Play with me' get a positive response.

I like the way you've teased out the difference between support and micro-management. And it's interesting to think about which "not my job" statements are optional vs. to be avoided, a line which is very individual and requires reflection.

I especially loved the ones about their happiness, and working. You know, even if I *could* afford to pay the full shot for university, I don't think I would. In fact, part of Diva Girl's 14th birthday celebrations will be the ceremonial writing of the resume :)

The first day, he only went for an hour because I had a meeting that interfered with the pick-up time. When I arrived, all the children were sitting at the snack table except Bub, who was staunchly resisting all attempts to persuade him to join. Other than that, it was fine - just a free play session (no circle time or group activities).

Today was the first full morning, and when I arrived one of the teachers was holding up her digital camera victoriously to show me the photo of Bub sitting at the snack table. "I ate crackers!" he announced. Apparently he participated in circle time too. Total success - I couldn't have hoped for a better start.

Pie, on the other hand, is staging daily meltdowns and demanding constant access to her soother. She likes going to day-care but she's MAD at me.

Ya, I saw you mention the soother bit over at Sin's last night. I must admit I wasn't prepared for the regression. For Miss M it's "what's a potty? Why would I use a potty when I can demand a pull-up or just wait to pee in the tub. Sigh."

Am printing out to stick on fridge. Yeah, I do that kind of thing. Once upon a time, it would have gone up on the push-pin board in my office at school. Now, fridge, beside WB's latest piece of paper plate art.

LM - Except that's one of my "NOT My Job" picks. I think sometimes it's optional (laudatory, but optional) and sometimes it's bad parenting, but knowing exactly which it is in a given situation requires the wisdom of Solomon.

I really enjoyed this post because it's a really healthy way of raising children. I'm always reading my friends books about good parenting (I want to be prepared, for when I have kids) and it seems to me you've summed up a lot of what I've read.

I don't know if you meant the post to be funny but it gave me giggles because for some reason it struck my funny bone. I just wanted to elaborate on the comment I posted earlier so you knew that I really liked the post and gained wisdom from it as well as it being funny to me.

Well, this is very reasonable, isn't it! Well said, Bubandpie, well said. Eady to agree with when I see it all written out like this, but hard to put into practice sometimes when I am right in the thick of it ...

Wow. I just bought this gorgeous somewhat alternative baby book that has pages and prompts for things like "adventures we have taken together" and "our hopes and dreams for you" and I'm thinking that making one of the blank pages into a "our values" page is a great idea. I love your post.

I agree with IT ALL, but this was my favorite:"Not My Job: To ensure that my children receive no benefits except those that are available to all."There is a liberal notion that, just because we want to improve things for everyone, we ought to not give our kids everything we can. We should work towards both.

I enjoyed this post, and even more so the comments after. I am glad you clarified that some of your "not my jobs" are based on your own values and interests, and not necessarily indicative of "bad" parenting.

As a mother of older children than you have (a junior high schooler-gulp!), I would also humbly encourage you to consider that your job is also to move through the years with a degree of flexibility and forgiveness. Things that sound absurd now, may take on new logic as your kids get older. A cell phone for a teenager may sound like an unnecessary luxury until your child is old enough to be out in the neighborhood by himself and you realize that if he had a cell phone you could track him down if necessary, and he could also immediately call home if he runs into trouble. There are ways to provide children some of the benefits of technology and present them as privileges, rather than luxuries.

As you said, many of these ideals are easier to say than to implement. I say that with a sigh...

Lori - What I had in mind with that one, actually, was a couple of posts I've read from Owlhaven and Veronica Mitchell about the assumption that family size must be determined by income - and that one can "afford" another child only when there's enough money to pay for all those gadgets AND four years of university tuition.

Add to that a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with a newlywed who plans to have only one child so that she can afford to give a car as a 16th birthday present ... and there you go.

Oh yes, I would be in complete agreement with you there. The idea that a car for a 16th birthday present is a given, is completely foreign to my way of thinking.

I guess I would say that, in my mind, family income shouldn't be completely unrelated to family size. But, not down to the ability to afford all of the bells and whistles. We have certainly sacrificed a certain lifestyle to be raising three children, but I have actually never considered for one second it to be a sacrifice. So long as we can afford the "needs" of our family, I won't worry about all of the "wants."

Oh, so right on every score. So nice to read from someone with a reasonable grasp of what promotes our values and helps our children to grow without imposing everything on them or handing them everything. Sanity at last!

Is there some petition of this going around? 'Cause I'll sign it. Now, whether I'll get a majority of others to sign it? Not bloody likely. But that's okay, really, what matters is what me and mine do.

Could you please consider this comment a nomination for a perfect post for this post? I am way too lame to figure out how to do it officially. Okay, I'll try... let me see what I can drum up. I really did think this is a perfect post. Loved it.

Well said and well done! I just read a great article (in Philly magazine) that touches on a lot of these issues, out of control parenting. etc. I wrote about it and linked to on my post yesterday. I think you will find it interesting and refreshing!

My oldest has just started her first year of university, and every day there seems to be new decisions for me to make concerning my job/not my job. She's also struggling with what SHE expects from me in terms of parenting from day-to-day. Your "manifesto" is extraordinarily insightful, and really resonates with me. It's going up on my office wall. (as I tend to not see things on the fridge)

B&P, I'm back and lurking through your archives! I loved this post and wondered if you'd mind if I borrowed the idea- really just the format. I was planning on linking to you, of course, but I wanted to ask your permission first. Thanks!